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On the bus from the danger zone: these people were evacuated from the Mariupol region
Photo: MARKO DJURICA / REUTERS
Dozens of buses from Kyiv and teams from aid organizations make their way to Mariupol, which has been fought over for weeks.
The Ukrainian President and NATO are expecting new Russian attacks in the east of the country.
And Germany wants to examine the new guidelines that Vladimir Putin is making for foreign gas customers - and in no case wants to appear open to blackmail.
It's the 36th day of the war.
The overview:
military situation
NATO sees no signs of relaxation in Ukraine.
"According to our intelligence information, Russian units are not withdrawing but are repositioning themselves," said their Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Russia is trying to regroup its troops, organize supplies and step up its offensive in Donbass.
At the same time, the pressure on the capital Kyiv and other cities will be maintained.
A high-ranking Pentagon official also believes that Kyiv is still at risk from Russian airstrikes.
According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine is preparing for a massive Russian attack in the east of the country.
One sees a concentration of troops there, according to Zelenskyj.
The Russian side also said the aim was to conquer those areas in the Donbass that were not yet under the control of pro-Russian separatists.
Russia had previously announced that it would scale back its military activities in the north-west of the country and around the capital, Kyiv.
The British Ministry of Defense announced that heavy fighting was still expected in the suburbs of Kiev.
Russian troops continued to hold positions east and west of the capital.
Something has happened in Chernobyl: five weeks after capturing the nuclear ruins there, the Russian troops have apparently begun to withdraw from the restricted area in northern Ukraine.
"This morning the invaders declared their intention to leave the Chernobyl nuclear power plant," said the Ukrainian nuclear energy company Energoatom.
The Russian soldiers would now "march in two columns towards the Ukrainian-Belarusian border."
Only a "small number" of Russian soldiers are still in the nuclear complex, Energoatom explained.
humanitarian situation
Evacuation efforts have begun following Russia's announcement of a ceasefire in Mariupol.
Kyiv sent 45 buses to the besieged port city in the south of the country to take civilians out of the city.
Teams from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also made their way there with relief supplies.
The ICRC said it was preparing to allow civilians to safely exit Mariupol on Friday.
Mariupol has been cut off from all supplies for weeks and has come under heavy fire from Russian forces.
The city has now been largely destroyed, but around 160,000 residents are said to be stuck there.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior announced that 288,500 Ukraine refugees have now been registered in Germany.
For comparison: Spain spoke of around 30,000 registered refugees on Thursday, with the country expecting the number to increase to 70,000 soon.
As usual, the Federal Ministry of the Interior linked its statement to the fact that the number of people seeking protection from Ukraine who had entered the country was "actually much higher".
The background is that there are no fixed border controls with EU countries like Poland and war refugees are not obliged to register.
So far, most refugees from Ukraine have arrived in Poland: almost 2.4 million.
That says Kyiv
Ukrainian negotiator David Arachamia announced that talks between Russia and Ukraine are set to resume on Friday – this time virtually.
Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy once again urged the Western allies to take a tougher stance on economic issues: in a video message to the Dutch parliament, he called for a boycott of Russian energy exports.
Zelenskyj said to the Australian Parliament: "We must stop all business with Russia." To do this, he wanted Bushmaster armored vehicles.
And Belgian politicians asked Zelenskyj on Thursday, among other things, to help his country with the planned EU accession.
Moscow says so
The Kremlin has countered Western intelligence reports that President Putin was given a false picture of the situation in Ukraine.
It turns out that neither the US State Department nor the Pentagon "have real information about what's happening in the Kremlin," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Putin himself claimed that all Western sanctions hitting the country after Russian troops invaded Ukraine had been prepared in advance and had been implemented "in any case."
The punitive measures were directed against "that we do not dance to the tune of others and do not sacrifice our national interests and traditional values," said Putin.
In the evening, Russia announced an entry ban for EU leaders and MPs.
"The restrictions apply to the highest officials of the EU," the foreign ministry said, "including a number of EU commissioners and heads of EU military structures, as well as the vast majority of MEPs who support anti-Russian policies."
It did not initially publish a list of those affected.
That's what the gas dispute is about
A decree signed by Putin on the subject of gas billing also caused a stir.
It stipulates that western countries must use accounts with Gazprombank to continue to purchase Russian gas.
According to the new rules, customers can still pay the bill for their gas deliveries by bank transfer in a foreign currency such as the euro.
However, the delivery is considered fully paid only when the foreign currency has been converted into rubles and forwarded to Gazprom.
In the first reactions, experts assumed that the changes would not have any major consequences.
"The bottom line is that not much will change for German companies," said Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of the foreign exchange department at Commerzbank.
This is how the international community is reacting
Even before Putin signed the decree, the G7 countries had refused to pay for oil and gas in rubles because their contracts are denominated in euros and dollars.
The federal government announced that it would examine the Russians' demands.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Protection said: “It is clear that Germany will continue to pay in euros.
We will not change anything about that, the G7 decision applies.«
Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and France's Economics and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire announced a daily exchange between Germany and France on gas supplies.
"It's important for us that we don't give the signal that we're going to let Putin blackmail us," Habeck said.
In view of the Russian attack on Ukraine, Germany and Austria want to press ahead with the EU accession process for the countries of the Western Balkans.
"Any further delay makes the Western Balkans vulnerable," said Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) after a meeting with Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer in Berlin.
"We not only need to talk about possible European perspectives, but now also to act," emphasized Nehammer.
In the Western Balkans, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia have EU accession candidate status.
As "potential" candidates, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo are further away from accession.
Concrete accession negotiations should have started long ago with Albania and North Macedonia, but this repeatedly failed due to resistance from various EU countries.
You should read this
The first Russian soldiers who died in Ukraine have now been returned to their homeland.
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How does it feel to be a famous Russian in exile right now?
Jan Petter and Reinis Hofmanis met Anton Dolin, Russia's best-known film critic, in Latvia.
He says: »The Ukraine war is our 9/11.
In the years to come, Russians will be viewed in the same way that women in burqas were viewed afterwards.«
Roman Abramovich apparently has a mission these days: he wants "peace to return as soon as possible."
Here Jörg Schindler portrays the notoriously shy multi-billionaire and his role in times of war.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is in India until Friday - a country that is apparently helping Russia to mitigate the economic consequences of Western sanctions.
Katharina Graça Peters explains in this article
why
India is not moving away from President Putin.
mboe/Reuters/AFP/dpa
